Deir al-Balah was the only Gaza municipality included after broader voting in the Gaza Strip was postponed. According to the commission’s Deir al-Balah election page, 70,449 voters were eligible there, with 12 polling centers prepared, including nine in tents and three hosted by civil society organizations.
What the Palestinian local elections showed
The Gaza result was politically important but numerically limited. The Fatah-backed Nahdat Deir al-Balah list won six of 15 seats, while a list widely seen by residents and analysts as aligned with Hamas won two, Reuters reported. The remaining seats went to two other Gaza-based lists not affiliated with either Fatah or Hamas, leaving Abbas’ camp first but short of full control.
The vote was also narrow by design. The Associated Press reported that Palestinian officials treated Deir al-Balah as a symbolic pilot meant to politically link Gaza and the West Bank, and that the councils chosen will oversee basic services such as water, roads and electricity. Many races were uncontested, and candidates were required to accept the program of the Palestine Liberation Organization, effectively sidelining Hamas and other factions.
WAFA reported that the new election law was applied for the first time, introducing open-list voting for municipal councils and a mixed individual system for village councils. The report also said Gaza residents locally printed ballot papers and prepared ballot boxes after election materials could not be brought into the enclave.
How past votes shaped Palestinian local elections
The symbolism of the 2026 vote is rooted in 2006, when Hamas defeated Fatah in parliamentary elections, with Al Jazeera reporting at the time that voters had rejected Fatah’s long rule. That victory preceded the rupture that left Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah dominant in the West Bank, turning later elections into tests of whether the two territories could be politically reconnected.
The pattern of partial voting hardened afterward. In 2017, Reuters reported that local elections were held in the West Bank but not in Gaza, with Fatah and Hamas blaming each other for the split. In April 2021, Abbas postponed planned parliamentary and presidential elections, Reuters reported, deepening doubts about whether national voting would return. By December 2021, another Reuters account described West Bank municipal elections that again went ahead without Gaza.
Why the win remains fragile
For Abbas’ supporters, the elections produced a visible victory at a moment when the Palestinian Authority is trying to show it remains relevant in both territories. The result also gave Fatah-backed candidates a foothold in Gaza’s electoral map for the first time in two decades, even if that foothold was limited to one city.
But the deeper result is more brittle. Deir al-Balah’s vote reintroduced a Gaza ballot, yet most of the Gaza Strip did not participate, Hamas stayed formally outside the process, and many West Bank races lacked competition. Unless broader elections follow, the Palestinian local elections may strengthen Abbas loyalists locally without resolving the larger crisis over national leadership, Gaza’s future and long-delayed presidential and legislative votes.
